Assessment of the Reporting Quality of Randomized Controlled Trials on Acupuncture for Simple Obesity with the CONSORT Statement and STRICTA

Objective To assess the quality of clinical randomized controlled trials of acupuncture treatment of simple obesity with CONSORT(Consolidated Standards for Reporting of Trials) statement and STRICTA(Standards for Reporting Interventions in Controlled Trials of acupuncture) as criteria.Methods Four databases including CNKI(China National Knowledge Infrastructure),CBM(China Biomedicine Database disc),VIP(a full text issues database of China) and WANFANG(another full text issues database of China) were searched systematically.Handsearch for further references was conducted.We identifed 112 RCTs that used acupuncture as an intervention and assessed the quality of these reports against the CONSORT statement and STRICTA.Results In regard to the items in the CONSORT statement,89(79.46%) RCTs described baseline demographic and clinical characteristics in each group.33(29.46%) mentioned the method of generating the random sequence rightly.Only 1(0.89%) RCT used blinding(single-blind).None of the RCTs reported the allocation concealment、sample size calculation and intention-to-treat(ITT) analysis.In regard to the items in STRICTA,only 7(6.25%) RCTs reported the numbers of needles inserted.In 67(59.82%) RCTs the needle type was reported,but only 24(21.43%) mentioned the depths of insertion.Only 1(0.89%) RCT mentioned the length of clinical experience.Conclusion The reporting quality of RCTs of acupuncture for simple obesity is low.The CONSORT statement and STRICTA should be used to standardize the reporting of RCTs of acupuncture.